Wooh! Awesome job...This calls for POMP and circumstance. (pun intended)
z
A/N: Rubbish poetry about kites and dying. (Kite-flying is actually banned in many areas of India and Pakistan today.)
there's a thread twining around my wrist, biting into my flesh
like the fangs of an invisible rattle-snake.
beads of red shine in the light like a
thousand splendid suns; droplets of rain if the sky could cry blood.
and it curls and it lisps like a fire-flamed train.
oh, it seeps and it pours and i think my wounds are scarlet birds
trying to fly;
they fall so easily.
i watch the blood trail around my fingertips:
like the viscosity of wine
it floods through the ravines in my flesh
and numbs me.
i'm hanging onto the sky by a thread.
a stray, fraying, lingering bit of fibre
the sky tore off its overcoat
and gave to me.
who knew silver linings could cut so well?
carve arches through my fingers and hollow down to my bones?
they rip and tear like knives never could.
they're pieces of fibre glass entwining with the wind;
the clouds are the cheeks they rub up against.
a patch of pale-red, a rosy ballet;
the flimsy piece of paper that tugs me to the heavens
like an old kashmiri rug grandma threw out
until the rain took all the colour away.
the snakes bite
into my sodden,
soaked flesh.
life bites just as hard, too.
i can see the sun set,
i wish i could set that easily.
i am a puppet of the hills, and my theatre is rolling green
where it meets the mountains carved; an amphitheater
watches cruelly on.
and all puppets fall.
Le Pomp!
I wouldn't say this poem is rubbish at all, in fact there are so many lovely gems in this that I can sink my teeth into, plenty in fact that you can probably make lots of poems out of this one x) You have interesting word choices that made this a thrilling read. Lots of vivid imagery and also I found the premise/subject very interesting.
Some suggestions for cleaning this up a little would probably be to cut off some bits in the "say it once, say it right" matter of speaking :3 Your poem is lending itself to elaboration, where you make such beautiful, striking connections - but the metaphors here express a lot of the same ideas.
So for example in that first stanza - beads of red and droplets of rain both say the same. I personally feel like you can just rid the last two lines and maybe just briefly cover the blood image with that scarlet birds line in the next stanza - scarlet birds just strikes me as a much more original way to say blood than the other two, and plus -- it brings something new to the poem with the idea of it trying to fly (cause we all know blood drops down towards gravity, so that struggle of it trying to fly is just amazing - great choice!).
and it curls and it lisps like a fire-flamed train.
i'm hanging ontothe sky by a thread.
a stray, fraying, lingering bit of fibre
the sky tore off its overcoat
and gave to me.
... okay I cannot compute. You expect me to critique this?
HAHA that's impossible.
First off, kites are illegal? o_o why? I'm afraid I didn't get that part xD
Second, holy cow your imagery, dude. Like, wow. I'm amazed. I've got no complaints xD this was really really good. I love the comparison of the narrator being a puppet and the kite being the strings. All of this was really beautiful; such strong images are being formed in the mind's eyes. I'm speechless xD
If anything, the only part I didn't like was:
the snakes bite
into
my
sodden,
soaked flesh.
Wow, it's very visual! There is negativity in the first stanza when you write "Like the fangs of an invisible rattlesnake" and "If the sky could cry blood." Are you aware that A Thousand Splendid Suns is a book? I was a bit wary after the first stanza because I couldn't tell if you wanted the bleeding to be negative or positive, but in the second stanza I realized (I think) your trying to portray it as melancholy and painful but also kind of beautiful. I might be far off here.
As i kept reading I felt more anxious and saw the gruesomeness of the act of kite flying. It had a good flow and left me with a sense of sad uneasiness. I like how in the last stanza you use choppy lines. It's an interesting change. I'm assuming you didn't use capitalization on purpose. You could consider not using any punctuation either, like e. e. cummings.
"like an old kashmiri rug grandma threw out
until the rain took all the colour away."
this part confused me a little. It sounds like Grandma threw the rug out until the rain took the rug's color away, which doesn't make much sense. consider rephrasing.
Overall, it was very good. Your imagery was powerful and it had a good message
Keep writing,
RedVine
Wow! What great images. I also love the Personification of the sky, clouds, wind, and kite. You had some great great lines. For example, perhaps my favorite is "the sky tore off its overcoat" - simply magical.
On to the review: I believe that you are foregoing capitalization for a reason, so I won't even give any advice on that. I actually quite liked it because the form of the poem reflected the matter. And because of the free form, I thought it could have used more freedom. I thought the commas, semicolons, colons, and question marks were all charming, but I thought you could do without the periods. I know this may seem weird, but the complete stop of the period just does not sit well with the freedom of spirit reflected in this poem. On punctuation, it might also be interesting to have free form when you speak of the wind, kite, sky, etc, then get more strict, especially when speaking of yourself as a puppet - like grammar and punctuation are the strings holding you. Just a thought. Might be fun to explore. Anyways, good luck!
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